Congress of the United States

The Congress of the
United States, the nation's lawmaking body, is made up of two houses,
the House of Representatives and the Senate. The main power of Congress,
as set forth in the U.S. Constitution, is to make laws that, when signed
by the president, become the law of the land, governing American life.
Congress also has the responsibility to determine that public policies
are being administered by the government in accordance with the law and
as efficiently and effectively as possible. Moreover, because Congress
is intended to represent the nation's citizens, its members are expected
to provide assistance and services to their constituents the people
back home in their states and districts. The news reporting of congressional
hearings, debates, and other activities provides citizens with much information
about what their government is doing. Congress sometimes is required to
perform specialized judicial and electoral functions. It acts as a judicial
body in the process of impeachment and removal of the president, and it
has the power to choose the president and vice-president should no candidate
gain a majority of electoral votes following a presidential election.

Membership
The Constitution restricts the membership of Congress by requiring House
members to be 25 years of age and senators 30. House members must have
been U.S. citizens for at least 7 years, and senators for 9.

Today the average
member is in his or her fifties, but the number of younger members has
increased in recent years. Almost all members of Congress were born in
the United States. Although members of the House are required only to
be inhabitants of their states, and not necessarily residents of the districts
from which they are elected, in fact, local residency has become an unwritten,
or customary, requirement for success at the polls.

From 1955 to 1995
a majority of the members of Congress were Democrats. In 1980, Republicans
gained control of the Senate and reduced the Democrats'majority in the
House, but Democrats recovered control of both houses in 1986. The pattern
of Democratic control of the Congress while Republicans occupied the White
House persisted until Democrat Bill Clinton became president in 1993 and
the Republicans took over both houses of Congress in 1995. In 2000 the
Republicans captured the presidency as well in the person of George
W. Bush though their majorities in Congress were reduced. In fact, in January 2001 the 107th Congress
convened with an evenly divided Senate 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans
although the Republicans could use Vice-President Richard Cheney
to break tie votes. That political configuration changed in May, however,
when Vermont senator James Jeffords switched from the Republican party
to become an Independent, leaving the Senate with 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans,
and 1 Independent. In the 2002 congressional elections the Republicans
took back control of the Senate with a one-vote majority and added to
their majority in the House.

Congressional Elections
Each state gets one House member regardless of its population. Beyond
that the states are given representation in the House of Representatives
on the basis of their population. The House is reapportioned every 10
years, after the federal census. Within states congressional district
boundary lines are drawn by the state legislatures. All House members
are elected in single-member districts, the total number of which has
been set by Congress at 435. Today, each House member has an average of
about 600,000 constituents. House members are elected every 2 years. The
Constitution awards each state two senators. Senators are elected to 6-year
terms, and one-third of the seats come up for election every 2 years.

Incumbency is important
in congressional elections. A high proportion of members of Congress seek
reelection, and an overwhelming proportion of them succeed. The incumbent
possesses several reelection advantages: the perquisites of the congressional
office are available to the incumbent; he or she is likely to be well
known in the state or district; and the incumbent is better able to raise
campaign money. Still, the turnover of the congressional membership is
high because of deaths and retirements, because some run for other offices,
and, increasingly, because some do not win reelection.

Congressional Organization
Congress is organized in three notable ways: its party organization and
leadership, its committee structure, and its staff.

Party Leadership.
Both houses of Congress are organized into majority and minority political
parties, each with its own leadership, but the House and the Senate are
organized differently. In the House the leader of the majority party serves
as the Speaker, who is the presiding officer of the House. Because the
Speaker controls debate in the House, has an important role in the selection
of committee members and chairpersons, and can influence the scheduling
and dispensation of legislation, the Speaker possesses substantial power.
The majority party organization is provided by the majority leader and
his or her assistants (called whips), along with specialized party committees.
They are chosen by the majority party caucus, made up of all the party
members in the House. Similarly, the minority party chooses a minority
leader, party whips, and members of its own party committees.

In the Senate the
presiding officer is not an important leader and does not exercise influence
over proceedings under most circumstances. Although the vice-president
may preside over the Senate, that person is not, in practice, required
to do so. Usually, senators take turns presiding over the body in a nominal
and routine way. The leadership of the Senate is provided by the majority
leader, who is selected by the majority party caucus. In turn, the minority
party chooses its minority leader. Although the majority leader manages
the business of the Senate, he or she does so in consultation with the
leader of the minority party.

Committees and
Subcommittees. Whereas party organization and leadership are not insignificant
in Congress, the most important organizational feature of the House and
Senate is the structure of their committees. Early in the 19th century
the congressional houses used few committees. As legislative business
became more varied and complex the division of labor among members became
more complex as well. Ultimately, committees and their subcommittees came
to provide the locus of most congressional work.

Congressional committees
are organized along substantive policy lines. Generally, they correspond
to the major departments of the executive branch. Thus both the House
and the Senate have created committees concerned with agriculture, defense,
housing, commerce, science and technology, education, government operations,
international relations, judiciary affairs, and service veterans. The
work of each committee is further subdivided so that it can be considered
by subcommittees. "Congress in committee is Congress at work,"
Woodrow Wilson once wrote. Today one might more accurately say that Congress
is mainly at work in its subcommittees. Especially in the House, major
bills are often considered by a number of subcommittees of different committees.

The most powerful
committees of Congress are those concerned specifically with government
finance. Both houses have budget committees whose job it is to set expenditure
targets for each fiscal year and to establish the authorized level of
the national debt. In addition, both houses have appropriations committees
that consider the budget requests of executive agencies in detail and
recommend budget legislation to their respective houses for approval.
Moreover, both houses have committees on taxation the House Ways
and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. These two committees
are concerned with government revenues and recommend the tax bills to
their own houses. Because the power of the purse is the most formidable
of congressional powers, these committees exercise great influence; hence
membership on them is much sought after.

Membership on House
and Senate committees is ultimately determined by party caucuses in the
two houses. House Democrats are assigned to committees upon recommendation
to the party caucus by the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. House
Republicans receive committee assignments through the Republican Committee
on Committees. Senate Democrats are assigned to committees by the Democratic
Steering Committee, and Senate Republicans, as do their House counterparts,
have a Committee on Committees for this purpose. The partisan composition
of committees is established by party ratios that differ to some extent
from committee to committee but are roughly equivalent to the party makeup
of the houses themselves.

The growing workload
of congressional committees, and the proliferation of subcommittees, until
1995, was paralleled by a remarkable growth in congressional staffing.
However, Republicans, who in the 1994 elections won control of Congress
for the first time since 1954, abolished 3 of the 23 committees the
Post Office and Civil Service, Merchant Marine and Fisheries, and District
of Columbia committees and cut about one-third of the remaining
committees'staffs. In 2001 there were 19 standing committees and 3 joint
committees in the U.S. House.

Staff. Congress
is served by a staff of more than 10,000 employees. It receives research
and information services from major agencies. The Congressional Research
Service, an arm of the Library of Congress, provides wide-ranging research
services for members and committees. The General Accounting Office supplies
reviews of the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of government programs.
The Office of Technology Assessment provides policy analysis in science
and technology. Finally, the Congressional Budget Office, working with
budget committees of both houses, furnishes fiscal and economic research.

The Legislative
Process In Congress
The legislative work of Congress begins when a bill is introduced by a
member. A bill is merely a document drawn up to specify the details of
a proposal of law. Public bills concern general questions of policy and
become public laws if they are passed by Congress and signed by the president.
Private bills are concerned with such individual matters as claims against
the government or cases having to do with immigration and naturalization.

House members introduce
bills simply by dropping them in the hopper at the clerk's desk in the
House chamber. Senators introduce bills by making a statement offering
a bill for introduction and sending it to the desk of the secretary of
the Senate. Once introduced, bills are referred to committees and, in
turn, to subcommittees. After subcommittees complete their review of bills,
they are returned to the full committees for recommendation as to their
passage by the full house. When a committee sends a bill to the full house
membership, it sends along a report, or written explanation of its action.

After a bill is reported
from the committee that has considered it, it is placed on a calendar,
the agenda for floor consideration of bills. Most House bills are funneled
to the floor for debate and voting by special rules worked out by the
House Rules Committee. In the Senate, bills are normally taken up on the
floor by requests for unanimous consent to do so. Debate on bills in the
House is regulated by a number of rules that place limitations on the
number and duration of members'speeches. The Senate, on the other hand,
normally practices unlimited debate on bills, although a procedure called
cloture exists for putting an end to prolonged speechmaking, or filibustering. During floor debate, amendments may be offered that
change or add to the bill.

After debate on a
bill is concluded, and voting has taken place on all amendments offered,
the bill is up for final passage. In the House, voting on amendments and
final passage may occur by a voice vote, although a roll-call vote is
the normal procedure on major bills. House members vote during roll calls
by using the electronic voting system in the House chamber. Forty-four
voting stations are located throughout the chamber. Members cast their
votes by inserting special identification cards in a slot on the voting
device and pushing the yea or nay buttons. With this system, 435 House
members can cast votes in a short time. The Senate has no similar system;
senators respond to roll calls by answering yea or nay when the clerk
calls their names in alphabetical order.

Bills passed by a
majority vote of the members of the House and Senate are sent to the president
for approval. If the president vetoes a bill, the disapproval may be overridden
by a two-thirds vote of both houses. If the House and the Senate pass
bills in different forms, a joint conference committee consisting of representatives
and senators is appointed to work out the differences. Agreements of a
conference committee must, in turn, be approved by both houses.

Congress and the
Executive
The legislative and executive branches of government are separate and
independent, but Congress and the executive do not work in isolation from
each other. Only members of Congress may introduce legislation, but the
president provides leadership to Congress by recommending a legislative
program. He thus influences both Congress's agenda and the substantive
content of its day-to-day policy decisions. Congress, however, scrutinizes
presidential proposals and often changes them substantially. Moreover,
Congress itself initiates much important legislation.

The most important
leverage the Congress has over the executive stems from its fiscal powers.
Executive agencies may not spend money unless the expenditure has been
authorized and appropriated by Congress. Congress greatly strengthened
its budgetary powers by the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974,
which provided for a congressional budget, created new committees to consider
overall budget outlays, and established the Congressional Budget Office.
The law also limited the president's power to rescind or impound the spending
of money appropriated by Congress.

Initiatives in foreign
policy usually are taken by the president, but Congress is also involved
in the making of foreign policy through its power to tax and spend, to
finance foreign policies, to declare war, and to ratify treaties (which
require the approval of two-thirds of the Senate). Congress placed unusual
limitations on the conduct of foreign relations in 1973 when it passed
the War Powers Act, restricting the president's authority to commit U.S.
troops abroad.

In various other ways,
Congress influences the work of the executive branch. Senate confirmation
is required for presidential nominations of cabinet officials, ambassadors,
federal judges, and certain other officials. Congressional committees
investigate executive agencies and officials and regularly review the
administrative implementation of congressionally enacted programs. Ultimately,
Congress has the power to remove the president from office through impeachment,
a process in which the House investigates alleged wrongdoing and votes
on the charges, and the Senate tries the president on these charges. In
1868, Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House and tried by the Senate,
narrowly escaping conviction. Richard M. Nixon resigned in 1974 after
the House Judiciary Committee recommended impeachment charges. Bill Clinton
was impeached (December 1998) on charges of perjury and obstruction of
justice but won acquittal in the Senate by a comfortable margin.

From time to time
Congress sets up special committees to investigate subjects that do not
fall directly in the jurisdiction of its standing committees. Its power
of investigation is considered one of the essential functions of Congress.
Special committees have been created to investigate criminal charges against
members, to study social and economic problems, to probe into unethical
political activities, and to publicize controversial issues. Famous special
committees were the House Committee on Un-American Activities, set up
in 1938 to investigate fascist, Communist, and other extremist political
organizations, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities
(commonly known as the Watergate committee), set up in 1973, and the House
and Senate select committees investigating the Iran-contra affair in 1987.

In the 1970s, Congress
accelerated its use of the legislative veto, a device originated in the
1930s by which provisions were written into a law requiring the executive
to seek congressional approval before taking actions authorized under
that law. By the 1980s, legislative veto provisions had been included
in more than 200 laws, including the War Powers Act. This practice came
under mounting attack from presidents and other executive branch officials,
and eventually it was challenged in the federal courts. In 1983 the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled that the legislative veto was an unconstitutional
intrusion by the legislature into the executive sphere.

A line-item veto,
by which a president could veto isolated portions of a law, was enacted
by Congress in 1996 but ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in
1998.

Congress and the
Public
Members of Congress live and work under great pressure. House members,
whose terms are only two years, must start planning for their next campaign
as soon as they are elected to the first one. Members commonly travel
weekly to their districts, maintain staff and offices there, send newsletters
to their constituents, and campaign vigorously for reelection even when
their districts are considered "safe" seats. They make extensive
use of free postal services and the printed reports of the Congressional
Record to show their constituents that they are active in their behalf.
Members are also constantly canvassed by lobbyists representing special-interest
groups.

Under pressure from
the public to open up its deliberations, the House in 1979 authorized
television coverage of its proceedings on C-SPAN, the public-affairs network.
The Senate followed suit in 1986. In the early 1990s, Congress also took
up reform proposals relating to campaign finance and lobbyists'contributions.
In 1993 the House banking facility was closed after revelations of members'
overdrafts.

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